A Thrill of Hope / Part 3 - "The Future of Our Hope" / Isaiah 9:7

A Thrill of Hope - Part 3 // “The Future of Our Hope”

Isaiah 9:7 // Mt. Zion Baptist Church #66 // Dr. Quentin Self

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WELCOME/INTRO - Good morning faith family. I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas season. I am glad you are here on this New Year’s Eve.

Let’s open the Word of God Together. Please turn to Isaiah chapter 9 verse 7.

There are less than 14 hours left in the year 2023. Some of you will be awake for the rest of those 14 hours. I plan to greet the New Year by looking at the inside of my eyelids. The Holiday Season is not for the faint of heart. By the time I get past Christmas and land on New Year’s Eve, I don’t have enough in my tank to stay up to Midnight and ring the New Year in, I hope to be tucked in my bed reading some light fiction by no later than 9:30pm tonight. Somebody said, “Amen.”

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However you choose to ring in the New Year, it’s coming. Tomorrow, we will wake up, 2023 will be gone and the moments in 2024 will be ticking away . . . and there’s nothing you or I can do to stop it.

2024 is a leap year. So we get a whole extra day. The phrase “24/7/365” does not apply next year—you’ve gotta say “24/7/366.”

Which adds up to 8,784 hours . . .

Which adds up to 527,040 minutes . . .

Which adds up to 31,622,400 seconds . . . that you and I will get to work with in the year 2024.

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31 million sounds like a lot.

8 thousand 7 hundred or so . . . not so much.

But that’s it. That’s all the hours you and I and everybody else in the world have to work with in the year to come.

And you’ve gotta sleep. You need to sleep at least 7 hours a night, which, I wish weren’t so, because man, the stuff you could get done if you didn’t have to sleep. But that’s not how God made us! He wired us and designed us so that if we don’t sleep enough, we end up actually wasting more time.

If you do sleep 7 hours a night, that takes the number of hours you have to work with down to 6,222 hours you and I have to work with in 2024, to do all the things that we have to do, all the things we need to do, and all the things that we want to do.

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Time is the most non-renewable resource in all the world.

You can’t plant three new “time” trees for every one we cut down to make toilet paper and all the other tree products that make like wonderful.

You can’t make more of it, like money, if you lose it or spend it unwisely.

No, when time gets spent, it is is gone, and it a’int never coming back.

And, on top of that, you can’t even put time on a shelf and save it for later, storing it up for the perfect time when you want to spend your precious moments. No, it comes and it goes and and keeps rolling right along. *Like the words of that Steve Miller Band song, “Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future.”

And because of the way TIME works, it is easy for it to start to feel like a steamroller dragging you into the FUTURE, every circuit of the minute hand like another revolution of the steam roller wheel, right over your face.

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Ephesians chapter 5 tells us what the Christian approach to time should be. In light of the gospel, in light of the work of Christ, we are supposed to “Redeem” time, or “make the best use of it.”

You know the verse, Ephesians 5:15–16 is where it says: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, (or, redeeming the time) because the days are evil.”

Which sounds awesome, right? Redeeming the time sounds like the very thing that we all would LOVE to do with our time.

But what on earth does that mean? What on earth does that look like? How do we even do that? Where do we even start?

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And, what we learn here in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 7, is that redeeming our time in the present ALL starts with making sure we have a right relationship with the FUTURE.

If we don’t want to live like we’re at the mercy of the TIME steamroller, we have to redeem our relationship with the FUTURE.

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For the most part, we most of the time operate out of a dysfunctional relationship with the future.

We fear it.

We try to control it.

We try to prolong it from happening.

We sometimes even just try to numb ourselves from the thought of it in the present, so it doesn’t hurt so bad when it comes.

But then it comes anyway, and we’re left with a big ‘ol pile of regret for wasting so much of the time we were given. And the effect snowballs—we end up wasting more time in the present, kicking ourselves for what is now in the past, and become even less ready to welcome the future, to the point that we are tempted to just give up on living with intentionality and just taking the days as they come because, you know what, I just don’t want to be let down. Low expectations, low disappointment.

That is no way to live.

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But, when we look at the FUTURE, and recognize just how uncertain it all is—even in the short term—that is precisely how we are tempted to live.

We are tempted to give up on planning the next day, because you don’t really know what’s going to happen.

Even trying to book a beach house for next summer, way in advance, induces a panic attack because you just don’t know what’s around the corner, and you’d rather not spend the extra $400 for travel insurance, but what other choice do you have?

The future is SO uncertain.

And the effect is that we end up feeling hopeless and helpless in the present, because we can’t be sure of what the future holds.

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But here in the first seven verses of Isaiah chapter 9, God gives us what we need to live with UNFADING HOPE in the present, no matter what.

The main point of these seven verses is that:

No matter the trial or the triumph, our heritage of unfading hope is as sure as the heart of God. (1a, 7b)

That point comes at us like bookends.

The very first phrase in verse 1 promises “NO GLOOM for her who was in anguish.” That is a promise of unfading hope with no expiration date and no exceptions. No Gloom. Period.

The very last phrase in verse 7 assures that promises by telling us that “The ZEAL of the LORD of hosts will do this.” That is a guarantee with no possibility of failure.

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In between those phrases are what makes it all happen.

In verses 1 through 5 we saw a “Foretaste of Hope,” where Isaiah paints a picture of what it will be like for the people of Israel and Judah to be delivered from their oppression and exile at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians.

But that deliverance, as amazing as it was, would be temporary. But nevertheless, God’s people can be hopeful, even in the reality of a short-lived triumph.

And that hope is possible because of what Isaiah tells them in Verse 6, where he points to “The Foundation of Hope,” to that Christ Child who would be born. HE is the strong foundation that enables God’s people to be hopeful in every situation.

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And now, this week, we have come to verse 7, where Isaiah points to “The Future of Our Hope.”

And in this verse we are given everything we need to stare down the barrel of an uncertain future without losing an ounce of our hopefulness.

Because, what Isaiah does for us here in verse 7, is lifts our heads higher than our short-term futures, and shows us the ultimate future we have to look forward to in the ever after.

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Isaiah chapter 9 Verse 7 restores our dysfunctional relationships with the future, and sets us free to Redeem our Time in the present. Which is precisely what we need this New Year’s Eve Sunday.

You have been thinking and setting goals and making plans for the year to come, and that might have produced in your heart no shortage of anxiety.

Let’s lean in and listen closely this morning to “The Future of Our Hope” . . . and then, let’s dive in to the new year with hearts full of peace and joy and purpose and contentment, overflowing with abundant life in Jesus, . . . because we know our future is secure.

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STILLNESS

PRAYER

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In Isaiah chapter 9 verse 7, the Word of God says:

Isaiah 9:7 (ESV)

Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

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Last week, in verse 6, that verse was a declaration of Jesus’ identity. It described WHO he was.

This week, verse 7, continues painting that portrait, but now, it is expanding to describe WHAT he will do.

The Redeemer, the Foundation of Israel’s hope who would allow them to be hopeful in the midst of their trial and tragedy and short-lived triumphs, would come as a child like no other to reign like no other, and he would be able to reign like no other because he is “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

He will reign like no other—”the government would be upon his shoulder”—is the way Isaiah put it in verse 6.

Then, in verse 7, Isaiah loops back to zoom in on that reign, to expand upon what things will be like when the government rests upon his shoulder.

And, like last week, what we are able to do here is expand upon the main point of these seven verses with a bit more of an explanation. And what we get is this truth, that;

No matter the trial or the triumph, our heritage of unfading hope is as sure as the heart of God, because of HOW Jesus REIGNS.

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This heritage of ours is a heritage of unfading hope. That is what we get to live with as God’s children, and that promise is absolutely certain. And it is because of WHO Jesus is, and WHAT Jesus does.

And what Jesus does is REIGN. He rules. He leads us and exercises authority over all creation.

We are right to emphasize the work of Jesus on the cross and rising from the dead. That is HOW he redeemed us and saved us. But often times, we lose sight of the bigger WHY in the picture. Why did he do that?

Did he shed his blood just to “save our souls” and punch our ticket to heaven?

In a sense, yes. That’s part of it. BUT that kind of language also misses the picture.

The idea of Jesus “saving our souls,” as if our souls are detached from who we are in our physical bodies is an unbiblical idea. The idea that Jesus just came to secure our destination when we die, is a partial idea.

He has bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

Jesus came and died and rose again . . . ULTIMATELY to take his rightful place as King of all Creation.

He redeems us and saves us and forgives our sins to make us citizens of his eternal kingdom, that he will establish fully and finally one day upon the earth. Once we die, we are present with the Lord, even as our bodies are left to decay. But THAT is not the final destination of our future. The final destination is resurrection of our bodies and full redemption of the entire earth.

And as we study the whole Bible, we get a bigger and clearer and more detailed picture of what that future reality will be like.

But here in Isaiah 9:7, what God does for us through Isaiah, is paint with broad strokes.

He offers for us a big picture description of what life will be like under Jesus’ reign as King. He describes to us the major, fundamental, foundational details of HOW Jesus reigns. And as we walk back through this verse bit-by-bit, we will see that he does indeed reign like no other.

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***START HERE

very first part of verse 7 . . .

The future of our hope: (is that) Christ will reign with absolute authority and accomplish absolute stability for all eternity. . . (7a)

Isaiah 9:7 (ESV)

“Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, . . .”

No end - space and time, no square inch not overwhelmed by peace, no split second not overwhelmed by peace.

“peace” - Isaiah 11,

. . . without compromising identity, as he works from the throne of David.

There was dissonance to the promise to David, and the kinds of kings they saw follow him, (and even him!). The future Messiah King is how God would keep his promise and his integrity.

. . . without compromising intentionality, as he himself upholds what he established.

. . . without compromising integrity, as he only acts with justice and righteousness.

. . . and without compromising longevity, as he reigns from now to forevermore.

not just deliverance from syro-ephraimite / Assyrian threat, but a forever reign of peace.

Zeal , accomplish / internal commitment, outward action - no disparity in the person of God. Goal setting. We have goals, we set goals, but we don’t work at it. “dream doesn’t work unless you do.” / Not so with God. As sure as the heart of God, and there’s no disparity between his heart and hands.

Future, thinking about future this time of year, the next year to come.